He
falls asleep at the wheel and dreams that everything is the same; he is
still driving at night through the long pine forest. Mile after
mile glides through the automobile. He manages distances more
easily now so there is time to discern in the night forest a single
tree, a stone, or a hidden path. These things seem as familiar
and absorbing as a love affair or his own childhood. He sees for
the first time that the forest extends not fifty or a hundred miles,
but infinitely on either side of the road, and that it is possible to
wander there forever, alone, and not die. . . The car veers into
the gravel at the edge of the blacktop. He wrenches the wheel
back to the left. He is wide-awake. The car is on the road,
speeding toward the end of its headlight beams.
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